Journal of Islamic Ethics (JIE)

Instructions for Authors [Last Updated December 2016]

Scope
Journal of Islamic Ethics (JIE) is to be an international podium for high-quality
academic research which improves our knowledge of the emerging field of Islamic
Ethics. The focus of the journal is on the ethical approaches embedded in Islamic
philosophy, theology, mysticism and jurisprudence as well as Islamic civilization in
general, and, more particularly, on the principles and methods (to be) followed in
applying these approaches to contemporary social life. The fields include, among
others, Arts, Bioethics, Economics, Education, Environment, Gender, Media,
Methodology, Migration & Human Rights, Politics and Psychology.

In addition to individual articles, JIE welcomes proposals for thematic issues/sections

dedicated to addressing distinct ethical issues. For book reviews, see the “Specific
Remarks” below.

JIE is open to academic researchers working in different disciplines who have a keen
interest in making seminal contributions to the fields listed above. The journal
welcomes all voices, regardless of their specific positions or backgrounds, as long as
they fit within the scope of the journal and successfully undergo the double-blind
peer-review process.

Major Criteria for Acceptance of Articles

When composing their texts, authors are requested to take into account the following
major criteria for acceptance:

Theory-: Papers should inform or improve our understanding of existing empirical or

theoretical knowledge in the fields of Islamic Ethics. Concepts should be clearly
explained. There should be no major flaws in the argument and the paper should be
free from any factual errors.

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Literature Review-: The paper should cite appropriate literature and provide proper
credit to existing work on the topic. It should show awareness of and interaction with
recent scholarship. It should neither be over-referenced, nor under-referenced.

Contribution/Novelty-: The paper should make a new and meaningful contribution to

the fields of Islamic Ethics, e.g. by arguing a new thesis, demonstrating a new
approach, or presenting a valuable synthesis of other research.

Plagiarism & Potential Legal Issues-: The work should in no way duplicate the work
of others. It should not be offensive or libellous.
Audience/Scope-: The work should be intended for scholars and researchers and fall
within the scope of Islamic Ethics, both in its theoretical and/or applied and empirical
dimensions. It should contain suggestions for the improvement of contemporary
Islamic thought.
Structure/Coherence-: The work should cohere internally, without addition of any
superfluous, non-constituent elements or omission of any necessary, constituent parts.

Miscellaneous-: The length of the paper should be commensurate with what it

actually contributes. It should be clear and concise, free of rhetoric and verbosity.

Specific Remarks on Book Reviews

In addition to the Articles, JIE will regularly publish Reviews of major new
contributions to the fields of Islamic Ethics. In general, the Editorial Board of JIE
will invite experts to write these reviews. However, it also welcomes the submission
of book reviews by individual authors at their own initiative. The combined purpose
of the typical book review for JIE is to summarize and, at the same time, critically
evaluate the work discussed. With a space limit between 800 and 2000 words, there
will always be the need to strike a balance between providing information about the
work to be reviewed on the one hand and leaving enough space for the reviewer’s
own evaluation on the other hand. Besides these two elements, a third aspect is to be
covered in the type of “extended review” required for the Journal of Islamic Ethics,
namely providing a critical commentary on the relevance of the work under review to
(one or more of) the fields of theoretical or applied Islamic Ethics. Therefore, book
reviews for JIES is to cover the following three basic elements:

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  (1) Summary: In this section, the reviewer provides a concise overview and
background of the work. The text’s key points and main ideas will be
highlighted. It is also advised to use certain quotes which illustrate the author’s
major points of view.
 (2) Critical Evaluation: The reviewer selects specific points related to the
work for further discussion and evaluation, giving, wherever this is possible,
priority to issues of methodology. One can also think of addressing questions
like, how does this work compare with other publications by the same author
or other books in the same genre? What make this work good, different, or
ground-breaking? What are the main strengths and weaknesses of the work?
What worked well for you and what was difficult to understand?
 (3) Relevance for the fields of Islamic Ethics: This relevance can be
highlighted by addressing the following questions:
 Which key questions did this work raise for you as a specialist in one
of the fields of Islamic Ethics?
 Where lies the work’s major contribution to Islamic Ethics?
 Do you have any ideas or concrete proposals about how to address
such questions?

Ethical and Legal Conditions

Submission of an article for publication in any of Brill’s journals implies the
following:

1. In the case of more than one author, all authors are in agreement about the content
of the manuscript and its submission to the journal.

2. The contents of the manuscript have been tacitly or explicitly approved by the
responsible authorities where the research was carried out.

3. The manuscript has not been published previously, in part or in whole, in English
or any other language, except as an abstract, part of a published lecture or academic
thesis.
4. The manuscript has not and will not be submitted to any other journal while still
under consideration for this journal.

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5. If accepted, the author(s) agree(s) to transfer copyright to the Publisher and the
manuscript will not be published elsewhere in any form, in English or any other
language, without prior written consent of the Publisher.

6. If the submission includes figures, tables, or large sections of text that have been
published previously, the author has obtained written permission from the original
copyright owner(s) to reproduce these items in the current manuscript in both the
online and print editions of the journal. All copyrighted material has been properly
credited in the manuscript. For more information on the reuse of figures, please go to
brill.com/downloads/Rights-in-Images.pdf.

Submission
Anonymity of the Manuscript – Adding a Separate Title Page
JIE uses a double-blind peer review system, which means that manuscript author(s)
do not know who the reviewers are, and that reviewers do not know the names of the
author(s). In view of the anonymity of this process, you are asked to submit a
separate title page which includes the full title of the manuscript plus the names and
complete contact details of all authors. This page will not be accessible to the
referees. All other files (manuscript, figures, tables, etc.) should not contain any
information concerning author names, institutional affiliations, etc. The names of
these files and the document properties should also be anonymized.
Electronic Submission

Contributions should be submitted to JIE’s email address: jie@brill.com as both a

Word document and a Portable Document Format (PDF). Please do not submit any
material directly to CILE staff or to any other Brill email address.

Style Requirements
Contributors should keep strictly to the guidelines listed below, since failure to do so
may delay the review process.
Language

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Contributions should be written in English (British or American), Arabic or French.
Spelling should be consistent throughout (except, of course, in quotes and references
where the original spelling needs to be retained). Do not use English capitalization
rules for languages other than English, but follow the current usage for these
languages.

N.B. When referring to English titles, English capitalization rules should be observed.
However, these capitalization rules should not be extended to titles in languages
other than English
Length

Contributions should not exceed 10,000 words, inclusive of in-text citations and
notes, but exclusive of a bibliography. Please include a word count with your
contribution.
Unicode and Non-Roman Fonts

In view of a uniform encoding of non-Latin scripts and diacritics used for Roman
transliteration of Arabic, the use of fonts conforming to the Unicode standard is
required. For the handling of special scripts and transliteration, we recommend
following the rules given below, and the information provided on the Brill website at:
brill.com/resources/authors/publishing-journals-brill/preparing-your-journal-article-
manuscript.
Transliteration

Transliterations of foreign words should follow accepted formats. For the

transliteration of Arabic and Persian script, we follow the system of the Third Edition
of Brill’s Encyclopaedia of Islam, which is as follows:

Consonants

‫ء‬ʾ ‫ب‬b ‫پ‬p ‫ت‬t ‫ ث‬th ‫ ج‬j ‫ چ‬ch ‫ ح‬ḥ ‫ خ‬kh ‫ د‬d ‫ ذ‬dh ‫ر‬r ‫ز‬z
‫ ژ‬zh ‫ س‬s ‫ ش‬sh ‫ ص‬ṣ ‫ ض‬ḍ ‫ ط‬ṭ ‫ظ‬ẓ ‫ع‬ʿ ‫ غ‬gh ‫ ف‬f ‫ق‬q ‫ک‬k ‫گ‬g
‫ل‬l ‫م‬m ‫ن‬n ‫ه‬h ‫و‬w ‫ی‬y

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Short Vowels

‫ ـَــ‬a ‫ ــُـ‬u ‫ ـِــ‬i

Long Vowels

‫اى‬ā ‫و‬ū ‫ي‬ī

Diphthongs

‫ ـ َ و‬aw ‫ ـ َ ي‬ay
‫ ة‬a; at (construct state)
‫ ال‬al- (article)
Font
In case the author uses specific non-standard fonts for the diacritics of Arabic or
Persian letters, notes about these fonts must be submitted.

Punctuation Marks
All punctuation marks (, : ; .) placed next to quotation marks, should generally be
included within the quotation marks (e.g. “right,” but not “false”, etc.). Moreover, if
a footnote number is placed next to a punctuation mark, it should be placed after the
punctuation mark (;1 .2) unless the context exigently requires it to be arranged
differently.

Indentation

Authors should use tabs for the indentation of paragraphs.

Manuscript Structure
The text must be formatted with 1.5-inch margins and be double-spaced. For all other
matters of style such as capitalization and the use of italics, the Chicago Manual of
Style (available online at: chicagomanualofstyle.org/contents.html) should be used as
a guide.

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Citations, Footnotes and Bibliography

Citations or references have to be provided in the text between brackets and in

accordance with the Author-Date approach as outlined below from the Chicago
Manual of Style [see http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html]

Footnotes are confined to short commentaries or necessary digressions. (Citations or

references are only provided in the main text, as indicated before and illustrated
below). JIE does not make use of endnotes. Please ensure that notes are relevant and
necessary and if the note becomes longer than a few short sentences, please consider
whether it merits being included into the main text.

Bibliography. Please provide an alphabetical list of all sources cited in your

contribution in the form of a bibliography. The style to be followed is that of the
Author-Date approach as outlined below from the Chicago Manual of Style. This
bibliography will not contribute to your word count.

Author-Date: Sample Citations from the Chicago Manual of Style

The following examples illustrate citations using the author-date system. Each
example of a reference list entry is accompanied by an example of a corresponding
parenthetical citation in the text. For more details and many more examples,
see chapter 15 of The Chicago Manual of Style.
Book
One author

Pollan, Michael. 2006. The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals.
New York: Penguin.

(Pollan 2006, 99–100)

Two or more authors

Ward, Geoffrey C., and Ken Burns. 2007. The War: An Intimate History, 1941–1945.
New York: Knopf.
(Ward and Burns 2007, 52)

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For four or more authors, list all of the authors in the reference list; in the text, list
only the first author, followed by et al. (“and others”):
(Barnes et al. 2010)

Editor, translator, or compiler instead of author

Lattimore, Richmond, trans. 1951. The Iliad of Homer. Chicago: University of

Chicago Press.

(Lattimore 1951, 91–92)

Editor, translator, or compiler in addition to author
García Márquez, Gabriel. 1988. Love in the Time of Cholera. Translated by Edith
Grossman. London: Cape.

(García Márquez 1988, 242–55)

Chapter or other part of a book

Kelly, John D. 2010. “Seeing Red: Mao Fetishism, Pax Americana, and the Moral
Economy of War.” In Anthropology and Global Counterinsurgency, edited by John
D. Kelly, Beatrice Jauregui, Sean T. Mitchell, and Jeremy Walton, 67–83. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.

(Kelly 2010, 77)

Chapter of an edited volume originally published elsewhere (as in primary sources)
Cicero, Quintus Tullius. 1986. “Handbook on Canvassing for the Consulship.”
In Rome: Late Republic and Principate, edited by Walter Emil Kaegi Jr. and Peter
White. Vol. 2 of University of Chicago Readings in Western Civilization, edited by
John Boyer and Julius Kirshner, 33–46. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Originally published in Evelyn S. Shuckburgh, trans., The Letters of Cicero, vol. 1
(London: George Bell & Sons, 1908).

(Cicero 1986, 35)

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Preface, foreword, introduction, or similar part of a book

Rieger, James. 1982. Introduction to Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, by

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, xi–xxxvii. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

(Rieger 1982, xx–xxi)

Book published electronically

If a book is available in more than one format, cite the version you consulted. For
books consulted online, list a URL; include an access date only if one is required by
your publisher or discipline. If no fixed page numbers are available, you can include
a section title or a chapter or other number.
Austen, Jane. 2007. Pride and Prejudice. New York: Penguin Classics. Kindle
edition.
Kurland, Philip B., and Ralph Lerner, eds. 1987. The Founders’ Constitution.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press. http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/.

(Austen 2007)

(Kurland and Lerner, chap. 10, doc. 19)

Journal article

Article in a print journal

In the text, list the specific page numbers consulted, if any. In the reference list entry,
list the page range for the whole article.

Weinstein, Joshua I. 2009. “The Market in Plato’s Republic.” Classical

Philology 104:439–58.

(Weinstein 2009, 440)

Article in an online journal

Include a DOI (Digital Object Identifier) if the journal lists one. A DOI is a
permanent ID that, when appended to http://dx.doi.org/ in the address bar of an

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Internet browser, will lead to the source. If no DOI is available, list a URL. Include
an access date only if one is required by your publisher or discipline.
Kossinets, Gueorgi, and Duncan J. Watts. 2009. “Origins of Homophily in an
Evolving Social Network.” American Journal of Sociology 115:405–50. Accessed
February 28, 2010. doi:10.1086/599247.

(Kossinets and Watts 2009, 411)

Article in a newspaper or popular magazine

Newspaper and magazine articles may be cited in running text (“As Sheryl Stolberg
and Robert Pear noted in a New York Times article on February 27, 2010,. . .”), and
they are commonly omitted from a reference list. The following examples show the
more formal versions of the citations. If you consulted the article online, include a
URL; include an access date only if your publisher or discipline requires one. If no
author is identified, begin the citation with the article title.
Mendelsohn, Daniel. 2010. “But Enough about Me.” New Yorker, January 25.

Stolberg, Sheryl Gay, and Robert Pear. 2010. “Wary Centrists Posing Challenge in
Health Care Vote.” New York Times, February 27. Accessed February 28, 2010.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/us/politics/28health.html.

(Mendelsohn 2010, 68)

(Stolberg and Pear 2010)

Book review

Kamp, David. 2006. “Deconstructing Dinner.” Review of The Omnivore’s Dilemma:

A Natural History of Four Meals, by Michael Pollan. New York Times, April 23,
Sunday Book Review.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/23/books/review/23kamp.html.

(Kamp 2006)
Thesis or dissertation

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Choi, Mihwa. 2008. “Contesting Imaginaires in Death Rituals during the Northern
Song Dynasty.” PhD diss., University of Chicago.
(Choi 2008)

Paper presented at a meeting or conference

Adelman, Rachel. 2009. “ ‘Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On’: God’s Footstool in
the Aramaic Targumim and Midrashic Tradition.” Paper presented at the annual
meeting for the Society of Biblical Literature, New Orleans, Louisiana, November
21–24.
(Adelman 2009)
Website

A citation to website content can often be limited to a mention in the text (“As of
July 19, 2008, the McDonald’s Corporation listed on its website . . .”). If a more
formal citation is desired, it may be styled as in the examples below. Because such
content is subject to change, include an access date or, if available, a date that the site
was last modified. In the absence of a date of publication, use the access date or last-
modified date as the basis of the citation.

Google. 2009. “Google Privacy Policy.” Last modified March 11.

http://www.google.com/intl/en/privacypolicy.html.
McDonald’s Corporation. 2008. “McDonald’s Happy Meal Toy Safety Facts.”
Accessed July 19. http://www.mcdonalds.com/corp/about/factsheets.html.

(Google 2009)

(McDonald’s 2008)

Blog entry or comment

Blog entries or comments may be cited in running text (“In a comment posted to The
Becker-Posner Blog on February 23, 2010, . . .”), and they are commonly omitted
from a reference list. If a reference list entry is needed, cite the blog post there but

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mention comments in the text only. (If an access date is required, add it before the
URL; see examples elsewhere in this guide.)
Posner, Richard. 2010. “Double Exports in Five Years?” The Becker-Posner Blog,
February 21. http://uchicagolaw.typepad.com/beckerposner/2010/02/double-exports-
in-five-years-posner.html.

(Posner 2010)

E-mail or text message

E-mail and text messages may be cited in running text (“In a text message to the
author on March 1, 2010, John Doe revealed . . .”), and they are rarely listed in a
reference list. In parenthetical citations, the term personal communication (or pers.
comm.) can be used.
(John Doe, e-mail message to author, February 28, 2010)

or

(John Doe, pers. comm.)

Item in a commercial database

For items retrieved from a commercial database, add the name of the database and an
accession number following the facts of publication. In this example, the dissertation
cited above is shown as it would be cited if it were retrieved from ProQuest’s
database for dissertations and theses.

Choi, Mihwa. 2008. “Contesting Imaginaires in Death Rituals during the Northern
Song Dynasty.” PhD diss., University of Chicago. ProQuest (AAT 3300426).

Abstracts and Keywords

For submissions written in English, a concise abstract (max. 150 words) in English
and, preferably, extensive abstracts in Arabic and French (max. 400 words), should
accompany English submission. Five key words should be included with the
abstracts.

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Affiliation and Acknowledgements
After reviewers’ approval, the first footnote of the final manuscript, marked by an
asterisk and not by a number, should contain the following information: Author’s
name, author’s affiliation accompanied by the mailing address reduced to its shortest
form (if available, a ‘corporate’ zip code is sufficient), author’s e-mail address (e.g. *
Mohammed Ghaly, Center for Islamic Legislation & Ethics, P. O. Box: 24110, Doha,
Qatar, mghaly@qfis.edu.qa). If an author wishes to give acknowledgements, these
should be placed in the first footnote marked by an asterisk before the author’s name,
affiliation etc. This is also the appropriate place for personal words of faith and praise,
opening religious formulae and the like, with which authors would like to enhance
their work. Hence, authors are kindly requested to avoid repeating such formulae
and phrases in the main text of their work.

Illustrations
Diagrams, charts, maps, plans, and other line drawings that are not embedded into the
text files, as well as photographs must be submitted as high-resolution image files
(TIFF format). If excessive file size forbids the uploading of images by e-mail, these
may be forwarded on CD-ROM while being replaced by low-resolution link copies at
the appropriate places in the article.

Biographical Note
Please provide a brief description of yourself for inclusion under Notes on
Contributors. This should be no more than 50 words.

Consent to Publish and Transfer of Copyright

By submitting a manuscript, the author agrees that the copyright for the article is
transferred to the Publisher if and when the article is accepted for publication. For
that purpose the author needs to sign the Consent to Publish form which will be sent
with the first proofs of the manuscript.

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Open Access
Submissions accepted for publication will be made available in Open Access, free of
charge, through Brill Open. This allows for non-exclusive Open Access publication
under a Creative Commons license in exchange for an Article Publication Charge
(APC), upon signing a special Brill Open Consent to Publish Form.

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